1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of the storage of wastes and to the depositing of these wastes in appropriate artificial sites.
It relates to a new method of storage where the risks of pollution by toxic wastes are minimized to the utmost, as well as to a corresponding installation.
The many difficult problems raised by waste dumps or tips into which various, often harmful, wastes are poured are known. Environmentalists often associate the very term "waste dump" or "tip" itself with the pollution of ground, surface water, underground water and surrounding air.
2. Description of the Prior Art
At present the different wastes, especially industrial wastes, barring nuclear wastes which constitute a specific case, are placed in large cavities of variable depths. A system such as this entails numerous drawbacks. These drawbacks include: the impossibility of making a visual check on the wastes and on their progress; the great difficulty and the high cost of taking samples for the periodic analyses that are normally necessary; the knotty problems raised by the need for quantitative and qualitative follow-up measures; the signs of the changes undergone by the stored wastes, such as leaching product, the presence of malodorous and even explosive gases; the need, when the discharge produces intolerable pollution, to remove the stored wastes and process them, which leads to difficult and costly operations; finally the understandable climate of suspicion that grows among the surrounding populace.
There is therefore an imperative and pressing need for storage systems and facilities wherein harmful wastes can be piled up without polluting the ground, water or air.
The invention makes it possible to meet these requirements and is also geared to other aims, notably: the visual checking of wastes, the checking of the changes undergone by these wastes as well as the periodic analysis of the leaching product of the wastes during rainfall, the possibility of conveying wastes during periods of rainfall or snowfall without any risk of causing pollution; finally high security of storage of wastes with respect to the mechanical and the physical aspects of the ground used as a substrate for wastes as well as the stability, in time, of the means used for the protection of the wastes.